


I Think I Saw You In My Sleep

by plasticpumpkins



Category: Chronicle (2012)
Genre: Blood, Flashbacks, Knives, M/M, Memory Recollection, Other, Post-Canon, Self Harm, Vomiting, emotional purging, general fuckery, i do not want anyone to panic, kissing (mention), pls don't read this if you're easily triggered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:36:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8394769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plasticpumpkins/pseuds/plasticpumpkins
Summary: Matt Garetty isn't doing too well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I don't typically write this kind of stuff, but I needed to get some stuff off my chest so here's 1k of Matt remembering the good ol' days and crying.

The blood soaked through the thin material of Matt’s T-shirt, effectively putting him into a sickened panic. He paced the floors, acutely aware of the sound of his heart throbbing in his chest. It was getting bad again, he could tell. There was an ache in his bones unlike no other. As the blood began to drip down, he took a stuttering breath inwards and collapsed to the floor. This had happened so many times before; he would lose too much of himself, desperately trying to pick the pieces back up before they could be tarnished by the lost blood that seemed to pool in his shoes. 

It bubbled into his throat, blurring the edges of his vision as it urged him to cough up every apology in him. He brought shaking, scarred hands up to claw at his throat. He dug blunt fingernails into his skin, hoping to any God that the feeling would stop; that he could learn how to breathe without the inhumane reaction drawing the philanthropy out of him. When the itchy, burning feeling set his throat to flames, he doubled over and placed his forehead against the hardwood flooring. 

He dry heaved around the feeling, but nothing would come up. When his trembling fingers could not scratch it out, they found the opening of his mouth and plunged to the back of his throat. He gagged around them, but would not stop edging his fingertips past his refusing tongue. The tears began to fall then, running off of his face to puddle on the floor beneath him. He forced his fingers farther back, finally drawing a painful lapse of blood and saltine crackers from his stomach onto the ground. 

He panted, not quite sure how to inhale or exhale any longer. He let his body revert back to a purely automated version of itself, now unbelievably aware of the blood pouring out of his stomach. Anxiety hummed along the edges of his being, and yet - he could not move, could not think. He couldn’t begin to understand the problem, but it was there. He didn’t know why or when. But it was there. There. There. In the pit of his stomach, turning in on itself, pulling pulse after pulse of blood from his veins. 

There was no good way to explain the emptiness inside of him. He could not tell anyone that he was both incredibly vacant and filled to the brim with something unidentifiable. He was hidden behind looming, vast brick walls and along with his body, there were forest fires swallowing his sense of calm. He told his mother, before the violence occurred, that he did not want to die. But he forgot to mention that he only wanted to live on good days. And he did not have many good days. Other days, he existed. 

He made himself do it. He pulled himself from a crumb-riddled bed every morning, taking cautious steps to make sure that he did not make much of an impact on the floor beneath him. In the shower, he would ponder the reality of his situation and scrub the scent of weed from his skin until it was raw beneath the continuous fall of water. Despite the throbbing in his head, he made it back home every day. It wasn’t easy, but it was tolerable. It did not hurt as much as he claimed it did. 

But now, huddled in his own blood and vomit, he knew the truth. He knew that he was preparing for this moment, this excruciating moment where his worst fears finally proved themselves to be real.  
\--  
‘’Do you think we’ll remember this day forever?’’ Andrew Detmer’s hushed voice broke through the barrier of silence surrounding them, unraveling the picture-perfect moment. 

Matt Garetty laughed, wrinkling his nose as he splayed himself out on the green grass. ‘’Well, uh, maybe,’’ he said, thinking it over. ‘’But think about all the days you’ve forgotten already, the ones your brain deemed unnecessary and threw out.’’ 

To their left, there was a huff of annoyance. ‘’Only you would put ‘Drew into an existential panic on the best day of his life,’’ mumbled Steve Montgomery, who was wiping vanilla ice cream from between his fingers. 

‘’Look, dude, I’m not the one who lets good ice cream go to waste,’’ Matt retorted weakly, glaring up at the rosy, cloud-filled sky above them. He refused to make eye contact and laugh. 

Andrew snorted, tampering with a panel of buttons on his camera. ‘’I think I can remember everything, like - like I know about everything that has ever happened in my life.’’ 

‘’Oh, yeah?’’ Matt piped up, suddenly propped on his elbows to stare accordingly at Andrew. ‘’Do you remember that time you made out with Steve in my closet?’’ 

Steve gave him a suspicious glance, unsure of aforementioned memory himself. 

Andrew was incredibly red, almost the same shade as the sky above them. He drug his eyes from his control panel to Matt then to Steve, ‘’I… I… Pictures or it didn’t happen.’’ 

‘’Thought ya said you remembered everything?’’ Matt snarked, thick eyebrows raised challengingly.

Andrew and Steve held eyes, but only one of them was soon to shake out of his dirty trainers. ‘’I - I do! But that… did… when….?’’ the youngest boy tried, suddenly tongue tied.

‘’Don’t you film everything for a reason, ‘Drew? Sheesh… ‘’ 

The camera was still in Andrew’s hands, but it was visibly jittering, close to slipping out of large hands. ‘’I haven’t uploaded footage in a while,’’ he defended, wholeheartedly believing the joke. 

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, ‘’Stop fucking with him, Matt.’’ 

There were still specks of ice cream dried on Steve’s hands, along with a particularly generous serving on the side of his mouth. On anyone else, this would have looked ridiculous. But Andrew found himself disappointed that they hadn’t kissed after all. He worried Matt would notice the let down, so he pushed it as far down as he could, swallowing the childish infatuation that lived in his stomach. 

Matt snorted, falling back on the grass. ‘’It was good while it lasted.’’ 

He counted this as a good day, because it was. It always would be. 

\--

When he became delirious from the blood loss, he seeked out the knife again. An uncalculated thrust drove the blade directly between two of his ribs. The impact drug a strangled noise from his throat, forcing vomit and noise out into the open space below him. The room blurred into smears of red and brown, forcing him to blink the obtrusion away as salty tears drained down his face. Pain built itself up in nauseating waves, washing over him and drowning him in his own misfortune. 

Matt always knew he was the bad guy. There weren’t any villains, or wolves, or illnesses to pull him under. It was always him. He was constantly dragging himself down, cutting his strings too short and blaming the scissors - the unfavored middle man between him and the truth. He had no one to speak to, sure that his thoughts were incriminating enough to lower him to his knees without prescription medicine. He was the teeth digging into his own neck, ripping his vocal chords out and waiting for them to find him outlining his own body with masking tape. He was the crime and the fingerprints. 

He ripped the knife from his chest, letting the blood pour. This was when he should have called the police, reported himself. He was incapable of telling the truth at this moment. So, in the dimly lit lighting, he prayed that he’d make it until the morning time. He tried to recall how much blood a person could lose before it was too late; he found nothing in his head, only guilt. He could not cut it out of himself this time. The hardwood was cool against his left cheek as he collapsed, boneless, onto the floor once again. The knife clattered beside him, bloody and without fault. He closed his eyes. 

\----

‘’What the hell is going on here?’’ Matt shouted, partly in surprise, partly in shock. 

Underneath the bleachers, Andrew and Steve break apart, clearly startled. ‘’What?’’ Andrew exclaimed, like he wasn’t sure of what was going on himself. 

Matt, however, ignored Andrew all together. He pointed at Steve, ‘’You’re making out with my cousin now?’’ 

Steve smiled awkwardly, an expression not often seen. ‘’Yeah?’’ 

‘’You didn’t wanna ask me first?’’ 

Andrew made a strangled noise, ‘’Don’t.’’ 

‘’You deflowered my sweet, baby, little cousin in broad daylight!’’ Matt practically yelled, drawing the attention of those on the field. 

‘’I’m a year younger than you and we only kissed!’’ 

‘’The smallest, weakest, unassuming baby in the whole wide world engaging in these acts! Steve Montgomery, you scoundrel.’’ 

Andrew was bright red, slowly squirming away from Steve as if he were afraid of repercussions. Yet, Steve wasn’t angry or scandalized in the slightest. He was chuckling under his breath, completely relaxed from where he sat on the dead grass. Confusion was apparent on Andrew’s face. 

‘’I can’t even ...high five you for this, dude,’’ Matt said finally, the slightest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

‘’Can you high five me? I made out with the most popular guy at school without trying all that hard,’’ Andrew piped up, holding out his hand, despite the distance between him and Matt. 

Matt shrugged his shoulders, shuffling forward to place his palm on Andrew’s. ‘’Sweet, bro, good job.’’ 

‘’Thanks. Can you leave?’’  
\--

When Matt woke up, he was lying in a pool of his own blood. He took a shaky breath inwards, wondering if the person he claimed to be in his memories could have predicted this. Probably not. But maybe. Maybe. He lifted himself from the floor with a quivering demand of his powers. All he had to do was make it to the hospital. He lived 20 miles away from the nearest one. The waiting game was always his least favorite to play, but he continued forward anyways, almost unseeing.


End file.
